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The Biggest Love of All

I could pretend like I don’t care. I could say that it wouldn’t bother me if I never found it. I could claim that I believe I would be fine without it. I could entertain the notion that monogamy is unrealistic.

Or I could be honest. And the truth of the matter is yes, I want to have a big love.

You know – the one where the sparks just fly. Where inhibitions, caution, fears, and apprehensions are dispersed into the wind of yesteryear – and I just go full force ahead into the tomorrow that now seems so clear. Where each bone and every sensation gives the indication that this person, this man, could be that someone I’ve been dreaming of. Where when he looks my way, when his eyes peer into mine, instead of just seeing facial expressions – I see something that even I couldn’t put into words. Where things, for whatever reason and measured in whatever way we both see fit – just work. Intensely, magically, profoundly, and naturally. Where passion and intrigue are magnified, but when I spent endless time with this person, I find myself shocked thinking, “Wow, this just feels right. It’s so easy.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this big love and deciding if getting over the idea of having a beautiful story with a dramatic plot line and incredible ending, is a huge part of this journey. We all know the love people produce movies, write novels, and compose music about are unrealistic. And if we admit to desiring such things, our independence, our intelligence, our interest in academia and the world is questioned. I mean, why should we waste brain cells or thoughts or hours of our life, thinking about the big love? When that love – where it be full of ups and downs or smooth sailing – is maybe, just an illusion? One that’s created by Hollywood and Harper Collins.

But the fiction that’s portrayed on silver screens and between pages – it’s inspired by facts. By people with real experiences. By men and women who have felt that thing, whatever it is. Maybe those who have seen it come and go, watched it while it stayed and then as it left. By those who were critics before they were stung by a buzzing person they couldn’t shoo away – regardless of how hard they tried.

I’ve yet to decide if The Love – as we all indicate worthy of capital letters – is the relationship that’s simple and easy-going, without drama and messiness, or if it’s the one that amidst all of the problems, at the end of the day, or in the final act, you’d still chose this person over any other eligibility. Maybe I’m conflicted because the strongest and most withstanding pairs I know all have varying histories. My dad had to pursue my mother for eight months before she finally agreed to go on a date with him (they were married four months later, mind you). A reader once told me she and her husband, knew in a single instance, with one silly glance, that they had just met their match. One of my closest friends, A, met her now-boyfriend in the states, but it took until they were in China at the same time, for them to come together. Other couples I know had to break up a few times, get over one another’s past, and let go of their own baggage to move forward. But when they did, it went full-force ahead into the land of happily ever-together. The stories are all different, the levels of intertwining roads and the bumps that break up the pavement vary, but the love is the same. It is intense. It is powerful. It is based on a mutual understanding of mutuality. It’s that love – the big one. The doozy.

For the majority of my life, I’ve feared not finding this relationship. Not having a man who flat-out, no questions asked, adored me. Not experiencing that impossible connection that’s uninterrupted because it’s that incredibly strong. Not having that feeling that I could, in fact, spend the rest of my life with someone and it not seem terrifying.

But if I’m honest – each relationship has increasingly been better. I’ve learned more with every choice, each mistake, and all of the romantic exchanges. I’ve mastered the difficult task of trying to make good out of bad and believe heartbreaks are more about growth than about pain. And while I haven’t had a life-altering, ground-breaking, knock me off my feet love – I’ve experienced love that’s worthy of words. Worthy of the time, spirit, and heart invested, even if the return was sometimes small.

All of these little loves may eventually add up to one big love – but what I’ve always had and always will have is something more. And that’s the relationship I have with myself. It’s always remarkably more trying and yet more sincere than any romance I’ve curated with a man. It has its ups and its downs. It’s full of trials and yet, worth each and every single off-day, for even an hour of feeling my very best. It takes me every place I need to go and when no one else can say the right words, I can find them if I look hard enough. It allows other people into the picture, just to show me how powerful the union really is and test how loyal I am to myself. It’s taken decades of pursuing and wooing, wining and dining, to get to where I am now. It’s a daily struggle with a daily reward. It’s the single most important, most intriguing, most difficult – and yet, the easiest, relationship I’ve ever been in or will ever experience.

There may be The One and I may want to find a big love to love, and I may never let go of the desire for that partnership. But at least I can be reassured that I’ve already found The Love. And no matter how much drama I encounter or admiration I give and receive, at least I know love is possible. And it is worth each and every downfall, if at the end of my story – the love I’ve found in myself remains the biggest love of all.

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Happily Forever Me

It started out as just any other ordinary day.

As I usually do on the weekends, I woke up around 11, laced my running shoes, and went for a run in the park. It was one of those mid-afternoons that are rare in New York -the air smells strikingly clean, the noise is at a bare minimum, and distractions seem more like far fetched ideas than obstacles. After a brisk four miles, I settled into a local coffee shop for water and iced coffee while devouring that week’s edition of New York magazine. Unconcerned with my lack of makeup or my unwashed hair, I sat out on their patio, enjoying the spring sun and the tulips starting to bloom in the city’s versions of “gardens.” My North Carolina-roots, however, may always make me a snob to such greenery – especially with the endless rolling hills I grew up with in my backyard.

Once I was thoroughly filled with ideas, news, and midtown’s people-watching debriefing for the day, I caught the downtown train to the West Village, where my cozy and classic one-bedroom was waiting for me. Along with Henry, my miniature mutt I rescued from the Long Island animal shelter a year back. Not much of an athlete, but more of a hunter of falling leaves and city-street grime, he sadly doesn’t get to partake in my days-off rituals, but he’s there in spirit and dog hair. Following a much-needed shower, a conference call to the UK to set up the following week’s speaking engagement and travel arrangements, and a play date with Henry – my friend and fellow editor rang to make sure we were still on for the gallery viewing, along with our signature wine and Chinese food meal with the regular group of ladies. Still smitten that somehow, everything managed to work out in its own way – perhaps not as I planned – but here I was, living where I wished, able to call myself a real writer (and get paid for it), and have the most wonderfully dynamic collection of friends and adventures.

A few hours and cocktails later, I found myself seriously considering purchasing a painting in a new exhibit hidden away in Chelsea at a unknown, yet trendy establishment. This portrait, of a woman in a yellow sundress, with the city cascading infinitely behind her made me remember the days of my fresh beginnings in New York – and of the path I decided to take to reach the place I was now. Champagne in one hand and the other resting on my hip, with my head tiled slightly, I became so engrossed in memories of what was, that I let my program slip out my grasp.

And it was in that instance, where the sheets went flying towards the ground, catching me off guard, and I knelt quickly in my tall Louboutins to gather my mess – that he realized he had just laid eyes on the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Of course, he told me such a thing many, many years later when that first glimpse of luster hadn’t necessarily lost its effect, but had evolved into something more profound and meaningful: love. And not just love, but the love.

When I first started this journey, I had grown exhausted of romantic illusions. As quite the daydreamer with a highly overactive imagination, I could design the scenerio of fate’s course, like the one above, in a single moment. Anything and everything I did, each move I made, man I went on a date with, or stranger who locked eyes with me, had the potential to be part of this grand story that I so badly wanted. So thoroughly was convinced I needed.

Then, I decided that to be cured of the love addiction qualities, of these self-defeating thoughts that robbed me of confidence and worth – I needed to cut out the dreaming. I needed to learn how to be completely self-sufficient, completely independent, completely, madly, totally, fully, in love with myself. This way, I would never feel like I needed a man, I would never let anything a guy did or didn’t do rule my life, and I definitely wouldn’t waste energy and time when the man in question refused to do the same. I would let my emotions fall far, far behind and put my rational, reasonable, and mature self in the forefront battling all of the dating wars to come, instead of letting a little thing called desperation step up to bat.

But, in admitting the nature of my wrongs, I’ve realized as time and steps have passed…you need your heart as much as you need your head. And as important as actually thinking through and doing something is, dreaming and believing are part of learning to really live, and really love, too.

I used to get caught up in visions of what a grand meeting would be for my hubby-to-be and I and when days, weeks, months, and well, years would pass without anything spectatuclar really happening, I’d start to doubt the possibility that something so magical, so wonderful, so beautifully designed by the heavens themselves could ever happen. And then inevitably, I’d start questioning if I was worthy of such a thing, or if love and all of that jazz I’d hoped for since I was a little girl was even meant for me at all.

But maybe what I forgot to take into consideration was the central theme of all of my fantasies: when the charming Mr. Right found me, bumped into me, came to my rescue, or met me – I was happy. Or more specifically, I was enjoying my life, doing something I loved, and content with whatever point in time I was existing in. The reason this man, whoever he was or will be, found me irrestistble because I was radiating a confidence that derived not from him, but from me.

Perhaps in every version of happily ever after I’ve created, I forgot that romantic bliss started with self-love. And while my obsessions led me to believe it was all about the man, the reality of my longings were actually all about me. So when I became disappointed or intolerably lonely, it wasn’t due  to the fact a knight on a horse didn’t come riding up the subway tracks (though, I’d love to see that, just for giggles), but because I wasn’t searching or demanding happiness with myself. I was waiting and waiting for the ending, when I hadn’t even given thought to the beginning.

Do I still hope there is a true love out there, somewhere in this city I adore so much? Do I still find myself, from time-to-time brewing up a story I’d greatly enjoying playing out in real life? Do I still allow my emotions to overtake my practicalities? Do I still find myself delusional in illusions? Do I still occasionally feel quite alone, even though I know I’m not?

Yes.

But now, at least, I have a rather brilliant, mostly secure, and increasingly interesting prologue, that one day, if I’m blessed, will turn into an ending that no story, no movie, no book, no creation of my playful mind, and no blog, could ever portray effectively. Even if that conclusion, ends with me standing solo – because no matter what page in my story I turn, there’s already a love inside and a hope for a love that’s outside of me…that’ll never stop writing more.

P.S. Confessions of a Love Addict is celebrating Valentine’s Day a little differently this year. We’ll make it more about the single ladies and less about flowers that’ll die in a day. Submit your Valentine here.